Utility meters are widely used in the measurement of many different types of commodities. For example, electrical meters are used for home residences as well as businesses and industries. Natural gas meters are used almost wherever natural gas is consumed. Water meters monitor the consumption of water, and many types of liquid flow meters are used to measure the consumption of such liquids.
While many people are honest and many businesses are run in a lawful fashion, some have attempted to disable the utility meters that measure the consumption of the commodities that they consume. Recently some have disabled meters that rely on a rotating magnetic pulse to cause a reed switch to open and close one time for each rotation of a rotating member. There even exist videos on the internet that describe how to disable such a meter.